


Heaven is in Your Eyes

by deadinsidebutliving



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Sam Winchester, Dead Jessica Moore, F/M, Fluff, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Nightmares, Past Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Has Nightmares, So much angst, Stanford Era, Trauma, Trigger Warning: Fire, but there's fluff, trigger warning: mentions and minor descriptions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 02:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13824180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadinsidebutliving/pseuds/deadinsidebutliving
Summary: Sam has a nightmare about Jess's death and goes into a breakdown because of the trauma. Castiel isn't there to comfort or help him because he is away. When Cas comes home, angst and fluff ensue.Set in a Stanford!AU bc I can't get enough of it.





	Heaven is in Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something I wrote for my creative writing class at school, and I lowkey wanted to show it to the internet, so here it is: the only piece of writing I'm proud of.  
> This probably isn't the most well-written thing in the world because I had to have it finished by a deadline so I had to rush the ending a little bit. 
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Mentions and very minor descriptions of abuse; fire

Sam woke up trembling in his bed, guilt wracking his body with shivers, the lingering visions from his nightmare adding to his terror-stricken state. He turned to the other side of the bed, hoping to find some solace in the warmth of his sleeping boyfriend, only to realize with enclosing despair that his boyfriend wasn’t home yet, he was still out on his interview a couple states over, performing for the best of the best. _Of all the nights in the world, I really had to break down tonight?_ Sam thought despairingly. As he felt his mind slowly slipping from a place where he could have some semblance of control over it, where he could have a coherent thought, to a dark place where he would spiral out of control, he let himself focus on the last thing he remembered about yesterday. He was making himself dinner. _That was a rational thought, you have control_ he repeated to himself, over and over, trying to shift his focus from on his nightmare to the real world. It wasn’t working. He kept remembering the nightmare - no, the memory. Tears pricked his eyes, and there was nothing he could do but let them fall. Seeing Jessica just across the hall, unable to reach her from across the fire, calling out to her, trying to get his girlfriend out of there, hearing her shout, “I love you!” before being dragged away by his brother Dean, away from the blistering heat. He remembered the cool January air on his skin, a painful contrast from the intense temperature inside his dorm. The anger at Dean spiked up again, his emotional mind saying that if he had just stayed _a little longer_ he would have been able to save her. He would have been able to at least save one of the women he loved. He wouldn’t have let her die like his mom did. His mind kept replaying the scene over and over again, and each time the feelings would be more intense, he could feel the fire, the way that the smoke was entering his lungs making breathing nearly impossible, and the blistering of his skin as he threw caution to the wind trying to find Jessica. As the sensations finally became too much for him to handle, he shot to the bathroom, turning on the tub to the coldest setting, barely even able to see through his tears. _This has to cool me down, this is real, that’s not. You’re ok, you’re in your apartment that you share with your boyfriend, Cas, at Stanford University. The fire isn’t here, you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine_.

He kept repeating his mantra of _you’re fine_ in his head, letting the words be his thin rope to the reality that he was in, to be an anchor to the world where his nightmares were gone. He had no idea how long he stayed there, just repeating the same thing, trying to convince himself that it was true. Sam didn’t notice when Cas came home, so when there was a crash of things Castiel had dropped after finally finding Sam, he flinched heavily and let more tears fall, not realizing it was Cas. His mind broke the anchor, the crash severing his thoughts of control. He was spiraling, the power of his mind unrestrained as his metaphorical demons took control. _Nonononononono Dad can’t be here I didn’t do anything wrong I - yes I did. I left home. He’s here to take me back. I can’t let him I can’t let him I can’t let him I can’t go back. Not now._

Castiel tried to approach him, trying to stop the constant stream of tears from falling down Sam’s face, but as soon as his hand touched Sam’s shoulder, Sam curled up into a ball, trying to protect all areas of his body that he could, expecting blows from his father to rain down on him. John would never let his son be this pathetic. He would make sure to punish him to make sure that his son developed more “manly” coping mechanism, to hell if they were healthy. So when a hand gently cupped his cheek, he blinked his eyes open in surprise, not expecting anything of the sort. When his vision started to clear, he came face to face with Cas staring back at him, concern etched in his eyes, silently asking what was wrong. Sam didn’t have words to describe anything right then, so he just let out a whimper of pain. He didn’t know what he needed, but he hoped Cas would be able to find out. Cas slowly guided Sam into a sitting position, guiding his body with shaking hands, the one fault in his steady, reassuring facade. He then helped Sam stand up, letting him hold up the weight of his body against Cas’s side. Cas put a careful arm around him, slowly guiding him to their shared room. He was lucky that it was a short distance, just across the hallway, because Sam’s emotional and mental exhaustion caught up with his physical well being and his knees gave out under him, right as they stepped up to their bed. Cas patiently got to work changing Sam’s soaking wet clothes, knowing that his boyfriend could not be left in this state. When he was finished, he laid Sam down, quietly laying behind him, spooning him while humming a lullaby* to soothe his troubled mind.

As they laid there together, just the sound of their heartbeats breaking the silence as the lullaby finished, Sam started to calm down. The guilt didn’t recede any less, but having the comforting presence of his boyfriend at least helped the tears disappear. Sam laid there for a few more minutes, trying to muster up the courage to talk, Cas didn’t even know why he was so distraught. He breathed out a sigh of anxiety, and Castiel pulled him closer, knowing what that sound meant. “Cas-” Sam began.

“No,” Cas interrupted.

“What? You didn’t even-” Sam tried indignantly.

“No. You’re obviously not in a good enough shape to talk about his yet, and you clearly don’t want to, so we’ll wait. I can wait for you to be better.”

Sam tried to argue, but all of his words were cut off by Castiel’s refusal to let him talk until he was sure that Sam was better, which apparently meant after he slept for at least seven hours.

“Can we at least get something to eat? I’m not sure when the last time that was for me,” Sam asked.

Cas nodded, picking his boyfriend up bridal style and carrying him to their small kitchen, startling a yelp from Sam.

“How in the holy hell are you doing this Cas? You’re like half a foot shorter than me!” Sam asked, bewildered, his mind starting to be dragged from the subject of both his Dad and Jessica.

Castiel smiled, knowing that his efforts had paid off, “I’ve been trying to build up some muscle since we started dating. When we first met, you looked like a lost puppy that had never been held in its entire life, so I made it my mission to pick you up one day, Samuel Cato Winchester, and it seems my efforts have come in handy.”

Sam blushed at his full name being said by his boyfriend, not to mention the fact that he was being carried by him, their faces mere inches away. He put his face in his hands and muttered embarrassedly, “I am going to die if you won’t stop being so fucking wonderful, Castiel Tallis Novak.”

“Hey! Just because I used your full name doesn’t mean you get to use mine! That’s not fair! You know how much I hate my full name! I am harshly offended that you would ever do anything like that!” Cas said melodramatically.

Sam chuckled at his boyfriend’s antics, gazing softly at his cornflower blue eyes. He watched the amusement melt into love and adoration in Cas’s eyes, the realization as Sam felt Cas’s muscles stiffen under him. “I need to set you down. Like, right now, otherwise my arms are literally going to fall off, and I will fail as a musician with no arms,” Cas laughed.

Sam sighed, regretting the facts that he had to leave his lover’s arms, even just for a short time. As he set to work making a small snack for the two of them - he was the only one out of the two of them that could make anything without setting it on fire - he let his mind walk him through the events of the night so far. As he tried to decide what he could stomach, his mind wandered to just an hour before, laying alone in the bathroom trying to calm down, and flinched remembering that he still hadn’t told Cas why he was in such a state earlier. He tried to push it from his mind, to just focus on making himself and Cas a snack.

Cas saw his boyfriend tense, sighing internally at his boyfriend’s refusal to give himself time to heal before talking about it, he walked over to him, hugging him from behind and trying to place his chin on Sam’s shoulder, grunting unhappily as he realized he was too short. Sam giggled at this, recognizing his boyfriend’s frustrated mannerisms, and turned around to give him a quick kiss to push the frustrations away. Sam let out a breath of nervousness. This would be his first time sharing anything about what happened with anyone but Dean, and he wasn’t the most empathetic of audiences. He looked Cas in the eyes, the calming nature of them soothing his anxiety. “So,” Sam let out a huff of air, “you probably know something about what I’m going to say, but just let me finish, and before you interrupt me, yes I’m sure that I’m ready to talk about this. Well, I’m not exactly ready but I know that if I don’t get this off of my chest now then I never will and I don’t want there to be any miscommunications between us and I want to give you a reason why what happened, happened tonight and I’ve started rambling I’m sorry I just-” Sam’s ramblings were cut off by a gentle hand on his shoulder and a soft kiss pressed to his lips.

“It’s ok. I’m listening, you don’t have to justify why or what you’re saying to me,” Cas murmured caringly, sitting on the counter so he could pull his boyfriend closer and lean his forehead on Sam’s.

“Where do you want me to start?” Sam questioned quietly, an air of sadness creeping into his voice.

“How about you start with why I found you in our bathtub in three inches deep of freezing cold water?” Cas soothed, running his hand through Sam’s hair.

“I had a nightmare.”

Cas rolled his eyes, “Normal nightmares don’t leave people in the state you were in, love.”

“It was about Jessica, the girl I dated before you,” Sam admitted.

Cas looked at him with a state of alarm, “What happened?” he asked quickly, “Did she hurt you?”

“No, no. She was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. She is - was - the reason I’m here today,” Sam started, “I met her during one of my classes here, and we worked on a group project together. Long story short, we ended up dating. For a few years, actually. It was the happiest I’ve ever been. Her presence and optimism and pure joy in her soul brought me out of what I thought was going to be the darkest years of my life. I had just run away from home to go to Stanford, without the blessing of my father. I was planning on marrying her. I was going to propose to her on our fourth anniversary. It was just a week before then, and-” Sam stopped suddenly, his eyes filling with tears. He took a deep breath and allowed himself to continue, “It was a week before our fourth anniversary, and my older brother Dean came to visit me, taking some time off of his repair shop. We were out at a bar, catching up, and on the way home, we saw smoke.”

Cas took a sharp inhale, hoping that what he thought wasn’t true.

“Our dorm was on fire. Some idiot freshman thought it would be a fun idea to try to get away with smoking in their dorm room, and fell asleep after they dropped their cigarette, and things got out of hand. I ran in there as fast as I could, after not being able to find Jess anywhere in the crowd of people who had already made it out. I managed to find her because our dorm was only on the third floor, and almost managed to get to her, she was _so close_ to me. I almost _saved her_. But she was across the hallway from me, and the way had collapsed. The flames were ovenlike, but I couldn’t pay attention to that, I had to get Jess out. But she knew that she wasn’t gonna make it out of there. The last words she said to me were ‘I love you!’ right before I lost sight of her in the flames. The only reason why I made it out of there instead of jumping into the fire with Jessica was that Dean followed me and finally caught up with me. He grabbed me and dragged me backward out of there, with me struggling against him the entire way. I was angry at him for the longest time for dragging me away from the fire. I thought it would’ve been better if I’d have died in that fire with Jess, then at least I wouldn’t be feeling like I was,” By the end, tears were falling freely on his face, quietly being brushed away by Cas’s soft fingers, knowing that if he spoke now, Sam would stop talking.

Sam coughed, clearing his throat, and sniffling quietly, preparing to talk again, he wanted to finish his story, “I was having a flashback to that night in my dream, and I couldn’t get it under control, and the memories just kept getting more and more real, and I ended up feeling like the heat of that night was real, so I laid in the tub with cool water to try to remind me that I was here and not there.” By this time, he was sobbing into Cas’s shoulder, Cas trying to comfort him by rubbing his back.

“Love, I can’t even imagine knowing what you must have felt like, both back then and last night. I’m just glad that you didn’t do anything too drastic, I have heard and read stories about people with experiences like yours that weren’t able to handle it as well as you had. You are the strongest person I know, and nothing will make me doubt that. Heaven shines in your eyes whenever I look at you,” Cas soothed, “But why did you flinch away from me when I tried to help you out of the bath?”

“That was for a completely different reason,” Sam explained, taking in a deep breath to try to make it through what he was about to say next, “The things you were holding crashing to the floor reminded me of when my dad would come home from drinking until everything went away. Even the smallest of mistakes would be severely punished, and directly disobeying him would make it even worse. He claimed the bruises and cuts were for ‘preparation for the real world, where life ain’t so peachy’ and that he was doing Dean and I a favor for teaching us about it. So when the stuff dropped to the ground, I was taken back there in my mind, and you weren’t you, you were John, my dad, and you had found me and wanted to take me home and hurt me and teach me a lesson for abandoning you and running away to college.”

Cas was horrified to learn this. It was all he could do not to think about strangling John for the damage he had done to his boyfriend. Cas pulled him in even tighter, trying to protect him from a world that seemed to be out to get him and cause him harm. Cas would not let that happen.

“Kinda - choking - me!” Sam gasped. Cas immediately released his hold on him, making sure that he was alright. It was very unusual for Cas to be this quiet, but he had a lot to contemplate and wrap his head around currently, so Sam could hardly blame him. Still, the uneasy quietness set Sam’s nerves on edge, so he was grateful when finally Cas said something.

“What do you need right now? That probably took a lot of energy out, and it looked like you were running on empty to start with, so what do you need?” Cas asked lovingly.   
Sam thought for a second, and even though he had come to the kitchen for some food, he realized that his nerves had extremely affected his appetite, and he felt as if he ate anything then he would probably throw it up, so he decided against that, instead saying, “Can I just sleep? I think I need to get more energy for the morning if I am going to make it through any lectures tomorrow.”

“Of course you can,” Cas said, “Would it be ok if I were to join you?”

Sam laughed at his question, “Of course it would be ok. It would actually be better if you were to join me. Your presence has always kept my nightmares at bay, and it feels really nice to be cuddled.”

They headed to their room, laying down in their bed, both of them slowly drifting off to sleep, though now without the threat of nightmares hanging over either of their heads.

**Author's Note:**

> *the lullaby that Castiel hums to Sam to help him calm down is All through the night which you can listen to here and look at the lyrics:


End file.
